Angus King Grills Trump DoI Nom On Admin Cancelling Approved Permits For Renewable Energy Projects

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During a Senate Energy Committee hearing last week, Sen. Angus King (I-ME) spoke about the Trump administration cancelling permits for renewable energy developments.

Transcript

00:00Thank you Mr. Chairman. Senator King. Thank you Mr. Chairman. Mr. Duffenmeyer I was

00:06fascinated by your exchanges with Senator Hovind at the end of his

00:09questioning about the restricting and changing permits in midstream. How do you

00:16feel about the fact that two weeks ago the Department of Interior canceled the

00:21permits for Empire Wind which took seven years, cost 2.5 billion dollars, they had

00:29fully completed permits including a lease from the Bureau of Energy Management

00:35from 2017. How do you feel about that? Thank you Senator King. Is it okay to pull

00:44that permit but not a permit for a pipeline? No and I will address your

00:50question directly. I did want to just say because you weren't here at the

00:54introduction, my wife and I our first year of marriage lived in Maine and I believe

00:58you were the governor at the time and we absolutely referred to as the golden age.

01:01It was the golden age. It was it was it was a honeymoon and a year-long honeymoon. It

01:05couldn't have been any better. I am not familiar with the wind project permit or

01:11licensing issue that you're describing. I will say from my standpoint especially in

01:17the private sector I think the reliance interest of business the

01:21predictability of these permits is something that's very important. I don't

01:25know what would have caused this administration to review a permit the way

01:30that you described. It was fully it was completed issued final record of

01:34decision everything was done. They were ready to I think they were actually

01:38beginning construction. In construction that was stopped but so I wish you'd look

01:45into that. I as a as a person who's been in the development business this is a

01:49worst nightmare. Yes. To go through the process spend in my case millions of

01:54dollars in this case of several billion dollars on permitting and have a permit

01:59pulled after it's issued that's that's not a good signal to industry as I think

02:03you will agree. Yes I do agree you know as the solicitor I won't be as much of a

02:09policymaker as I will be an advisor but to the extent that I'm it but you know where

02:15the lines blur you're gonna have a strong voice in the room in favor of

02:19reliability and predictability and durability of these permits and that you

02:24know the private sector needs to be able to rely on this in order to attract the

02:27capital to build the infrastructure that we need. Completely agree and I hope that

02:32strong voice will be heard. 14 days 28 days for an environmental impact

02:38statement that that's impossible. That is the Lawyers and Accountants Relief Act of

02:472025 because that that decision will inevitably as you point out yourself be

02:53appealed go into litigation which will take a year or two come back to the

02:57agency. I'm I'm completely committed I joined the chair and and and Senator

03:02Barrasso, Senator Manchin on permitting reform and time limits absolutely but

03:07setting time limits that are so unrealistic as to guarantee litigation

03:12it seems to me is not a is not a productive use of the of the rulemaking

03:16power. You you've been in this business 28 days for an environmental impact

03:21statement that's that's not serious. Yeah well I share Senator Heinrich's view that

03:27you know if we're able to comply with the statute within 28 days then you know I

03:32will applaud the entire. And if I can walk across the Potomac River that'll be good

03:36too. Well it doesn't seem. Although the press would say King unable to swim if I

03:40did that. Right. I'm not sure I would agree that it's impossible you know it

03:44doesn't defy the laws of physics. I my view is that it's a very ambitious

03:49timeline. I have not been involved in developing that timeline but I'm very

03:54much committed to expediting these permitting timelines as much as we

03:58possibly can. We're all committed to that I just don't want real unrealistic goals

04:02that end up lengthening the timeline. Ms. Gazzara are you aware what the cheapest

04:09electricity produced in America today is? For the cheapest? Cheapest, cheapest

04:13source of electricity in America today. So when it comes to the cost. The fact that

04:20I'm asking you the question should give you a hint. Would it be Maine? It's solar and

04:25wind. Cheapest form of electricity today. And would you also agree that renewables

04:33plus storage equals baseload? Senator, thank you for asking about the cost of

04:40electricity. It's a complicated question and there are many drivers. No, it isn't

04:44complicated. It's how much it's what the bus bar cost is of various forms of

04:48electricity. There are reports. I get a report every week on what the cost of

04:52electricity is from various sources. Wind and solar are consistently the lowest.

04:58So at the office of electricity we look at systems and so as an engineer that's

05:03what we look at. We look at integrated systems planning not just resource

05:07planning and so every resource has a certain value that they can provide to

05:13the grid and sometimes there are systems costs and there's different values

05:18that like compared from firm baseload compared to solar and wind that you

05:22need to make some accommodation for the intermittency that you have. And I agree

05:27with that. That's I totally agree with that and right now battery battery storage is

05:32more expensive and therefore makes the net cost higher. I understand that. On the

05:37other hand I think the important thing is there have been gigantic steps in

05:41battery technology over just in the last five years and the point is wind and

05:47solar are intermittent but when you have storage whether it's battery or pump

05:52storage or whatever else that's the same as as baseload because you you the

05:57intermittency problem goes away. Correct? Senator when we think about the cost of

06:03electricity it's going to depend on the geography like where you are located and

06:07you know how does that resource behave there and it's also going to depend on

06:11the load and how that behaves with that. And so it's really going to depend on

06:17where you are where the where you are in the system and what we're finding is... Of course

06:23windy places have more wind power and it's a higher capacity factor I get that but

06:28still I'll share the data with you it's pretty clear natural gas combined cycle is

06:35is a little bit higher wind and solar the cheapest nuclear is more expensive I mean

06:39coal is is very expensive so and I understand you got to talk about storage

06:45too but the point I want to make is all of the above means all of the above and it

06:52worries me that we're talking strictly about fossil fuel development and not the

06:57technologies that will enable us to have a cleaner energy future storage is part of

07:03it. Solar and wind have already the price has already dropped so dramatically. One

07:10other point and I'm way over time is about grid enhancing technologies when

07:16you're talking about transmission. I hope that's something you look seriously at so

07:20that we're not just over building and take we should take advantage of

07:24technologies like reconductoring and the so-called gets. Do you agree that that's

07:29something that should be seriously looked at as we're talking about

07:32transmission enhancement? Senator the gets are very important because if we're

07:36going to get much more energy out of the system we need to not just have energy

07:41addition but we can also get more out of the system. Which will save us huge costs

07:47in transmission development and that I think is something that should be looked

07:52at first before we talk about new rights-of-way poles etc. Senator I think that

07:58we have to look at everything all the options that are available because the

08:02the demand is increasing by so much that we're going to have to look at every

08:07option that's on the table and what is commercially ready what is most viable

08:11over the long term and so if confirmed the office of electricity will will be

08:17looking at I'll be working to end that research area for advancing conductors power

08:25electronics micro grids and various areas to advance the state of the technology.

08:29Thank you. Thank you Mr. Chairman for the indulgence. Senator Borkowski. Thank you Mr.

08:33Chairman and I apologize that I've missed most of your testimony. My

08:38commitment to you is I'm going back to

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